


Mea Culpa

by ameliacareful



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4093654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliacareful/pseuds/ameliacareful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 10 before they find the Book of the Damned but after Dean is restored to human.  Mild spoilers for that season.  Sam and Dean are hunting a creature that eats brains because keeping busy is what Dean needs to do.  The creature turns out to be a very old monster with the ability to drive people crazy.</p>
<p>This is from a very old prompt I found on line asking for a story where either Dean or Sam has Coutard's Syndrome, also called Walking Corpse Syndrome.  I ended up writing about another Syndrome--Capgras Syndrome, where the person who has it believes that someone has been replaced with an exact duplicate of themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mea Culpa

**Title:** Mea Culpa  
**Author:** AmeliaCareful’sDaughter  
**Word Count:** 13,000  
**Pairings:** none/gen  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** Season 10  
**Warnings:**  a disturbing image or two  
**Disclaimer** : Not mine  
**Summary:** From a very old prompt requesting a story involving Coutard Delusion, where someone believes that a person or persons around them have been replaced by an identical copy.

 

Season 10 before they find the Book of the Damned but after Dean is restored to human. Mild spoilers for that season. Sam and Dean are hunting a creature that eats brains because keeping busy is what Dean needs to do. The creature turns out to be a very old monster with the ability to drive people crazy. Original Monster, torture, hurt!Sam, evil!Dean, protective!Dean, Charlie.

 

Mea Culpa

 

            It was ten at night at strip mall in Lewiston, Maine. Nail salon (closed), check cashing and payday loan place (still open), sushi restaurant (scene of crime), and paint store (closed). The sushi restaurant had an A from the board of health posted in the window and three police cruisers parked outside. Two agents, Jones and Smith, flipped opened their FBI IDs and the cop lifted the yellow tape in front of the door for them to duck under.  

“One of these days someone is gonna bust you for your lack of regulation haircut,” ‘Smith’ said.

            “Bite me,” ‘Jones’ said. He smiled professionally at the detective standing by the body.

            The body was of a middle-aged Korean man but ‘Jones’ wouldn’t have been able to tell without Detective Norris telling him. Mr. Choi’s head had been split open into four pieces and his brain scooped out so not much above the shoulders was identifiable.

            “Did you find a weapon?” Sam asked the detective.

            Dean looked at Sam. “Like what? A giant nut cracker and ice cream scoop?”

            The detective shrugged. “Exactly. We’re saying blunt instrument but what the fuck?” He was a Mainer, a middle-aged unflappable guy, narrow except for a bit of a belly. Not thrilled about Feds but resigned. “You got more of these out of state?”

            The detective was trying to figure out why the FBI had been called in on the case. This was the second one in town. The first one was why Sam and Dean were here. “No,” Sam said. “We’re on a special task force that follows up on really unusual stuff.”

            “Oh yeah? Like what?”

            “Saw someone who’d had an anvil dropped on them once,” Dean said.

            “An anvil?” the detective asked.

            “Like Wiley Coyote,” Dean said.

            The detective grinned. “That’s pretty unusual.”

Sam pulled his phone out to take photos. “Any witnesses?”

            “One of the sushi chefs was here but he says he didn’t see anything.”

            “Mind if we talk to him?” Sam asked.

            Detective shrugged. “Fine with me. He’s down at the station.”

            Back in the Impala, Dean said, “What are you thinking. Kitsune?”

            Sam shook his head. Kitsune left a tiny entrance wound, sucked out the brains. “How would they crack the guy’s head open that way?”

            Dean shrugged. “Some kind of leftover Eve experiment?”

            “Some weird Jefferson Starship?” Sam said. “There would be a trail of cracked heads from here to Oregon.”

            “Pretty sure Crowley got them all anyway.”

#

            The point of this hunt was to let Dean burn off a little Mark of Cain generated rage. Sam wasn’t sure if hunting helped or hurt. Did violence bleed off some of the pressure or fan the flames?

            It was pretty clear that sitting around was bad.

            Sam had been in a lot of police stations in his time and the smaller the town, the more likely they were to look a lot like an office complex or an elementary school. This one was a low slung building that combined city hall, police, and fire. They followed signs to visitor parking. They passed a building that had directions for tax assessments, buildings and permits, and parks and recreation before they found the police. Inside was a room with plastic chairs and a couple of windows, one marked traffic violations. The windows were fronted in plexiglass and had a tray to pass docs through.

            “The smaller the station, the bigger the hassle,” Dean said. It was true. Small town cops were less accustomed to outsiders and they tended to get nervous. They didn’t know the procedure. They stalled.

            They pressed their badges against the window. Sam looked friendly and said, “Detective Norris told us to come on over. We were just at the scene of the Choi murder.”

            The woman at the window was no Jodi Mills but she let them in back with a minimum of fuss. Sam thought Dean looked a little disappointed.

            The sushi ‘chef’ was a twenty-something kid. He was sitting in a chair next to a policeman’s desk. He wore sushi chef clothes; a white sort of kimono jacket, black pants, and a bandanna with a rising sun on it.

            They flashed their badges and he looked scared. “FBI?” he said. He had a touch of a Maine accent and didn’t sound Japanese or Korean at all.

            “You’re not Chinese?” Dean said.

            Sam felt a moment of embarrassment. “Sushi is Japanese,” he said to Dean. “And Park is a Korean name. Steven Park,” he held out his hand to the kid. “I’m Sam, this is my partner, Dean. He eats like a twelve year old.”

            “I didn’t see anything,” Steven Park said, “and I don’t do drugs.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. “That’s too bad,” Dean said, not making it exactly clear whether it was about not seeing anything or not doing drugs.

            “How long have you worked for Mr. Choi?” Sam asked.

            “Since I was sixteen,” Steven said. “He gave me my first job. He’s my dad’s cousin. I worked as a busboy, then I worked prep, then he taught me to make rice and cut sushi.”

            “Did Mr. Choi ever do drugs?” Dean asked.

            “No!” Steven said. “He’s Methodist!”

            Which may not have been the _best answer ever_ but might have made their top five. Sam kept his face sympathetic. “We’re part of a special task force and we investigate unusual crimes. The questions we ask might seem…odd. Did you ever notice anything unusual at the restaurant?”

            “Cold spots?” Dean prompted.

            “No,” Steven said. “It wasn’t a ghost or anything.”

            “Oh,” Sam said, “What was it then?”

            “It was Cthulhu,” Steven said earnestly.

            “Cthulhu,” Sam said.

            Dean looked confused.

            Steven sagged. “I swear, I don’t take drugs.”

            “It’s okay, just tell us what you saw,” Sam said.

            Steven described how he had worked dinner and then wrapped the sushi bar. He’d gone in the back to clean and close while Mr. Choi stayed in front in case they had any late customers. They didn’t usually do much business after nine or so on a Tuesday.

            He’d heard the bell on the front door and hadn’t thought much about it; Mr. Choi would call him when he needed him. Then he heard a weird sound. Dean had asked what and Steven said it sounded…like a coconut cracking open. Then he started to cry. He told them through tears that he’d peeked out the kitchen.

“I saw a thing like a man with…” Steven paused and then went for it, “with an octopus for a head. It was bent over Mr. Choi.”

            “An octopus for a head,” Sam said.

            “Yes!” Steven said. “Octopus head. I knew you wouldn’t believe me! But I know what I saw! We serve octopus! Tako! I know what octopus tentacles look like! It had octopus eyes! Its tentacles had suckers! Only six tentacles, though. And it ate the inside of Mr. Choi’s head. It made this terrible squelching noise! I couldn’t move!”

            “Then what happened?” Sam asked quietly.

            “Then it stood up. It was wearing these old-fashioned looking clothes, like Roman or something, and it walked out the door. I didn’t do anything but hide.”

            “You couldn’t have done anything,” Sam said, “it just would have killed you.”

#

            “So who’s Cathuku?” Dean asked, opening the driver’s side door to the Impala. He loosened his tie.

            “ _Cthulhu_ is a Great Old One, a god,” Sam said.

            “Oh fuck, no more gods,” Dean said. “I hate freakin’ gods.”

            “Except it can’t be Cthulhu because he’s made up by a horror writer named H.P. Lovecraft,” Sam said.

            “But like Dracula, based on real monsters?” Dean said.

            “Nope,” Sam said.

            “Tulpa?” Dean hazarded.

            “There is a pretty serious Lovecraft fandom. Lovecraft games, stories by other writers in the Lovecraft mythos but to make a tulpa, they’d have to believe that Cthulhu was in Lewiston, Maine. Specifically in the town of Lewiston, Maine, where he cracks open heads and eats brains. Which is not what he’s supposed to do.”

            “What’s he supposed to do?”

            “Either enslave or destroy mankind,” Sam said. “Charlie would know.”

            “Peachy. So not a tulpa,” Dean agreed.

            “Research,” Sam said. Not sure what they were likely to find on a laptop. Not for the first time, he wished they could call Bobby. Could call someone.

            They had picked a motel that was within walking distance of a bar. They had done that three times in a row, now. They had not mentioned that they were doing it. For one thing, it was a pattern and Dad had said not to establish that kind of pattern. Don’t be predictable. Use different routes to and from school and all that crap. For another thing it was just not really something Sam wanted to think about doing. Except he did because, well, think about what he was doing was one of the things he did all the time. In some ways, thinking about what he was doing was something he’d been doing for over 210 years (counting Hell) and one of the things he just accepted about himself. On the other hand, lots of times in Hell he hadn’t been thinking at all. Hell was like sex and hunting in that parts of it were wordless, adrenaline driven experiences.

            So they parked, took turns showering, and headed next door for dinner and a couple of drinks without saying so much as ‘hungry?’

            Sam was starving. He tried to eat clean but sometimes on the road there was nothing to eat but junk. There was a tuna patty melt on the menu and some chicken breast sandwich thing but he just had a burger, no onions. Beer. The place wasn’t very busy at 10:30 on a Tuesday night. The bartender was female and cute so when Dean went to fetch their yet another round of beers, Sam wasn’t surprised that it took awhile.

            He thought about how badly he needed to work out. When his shoulder had healed up he’d started running and doing what he could to build back up. If he didn’t, he lost weight and strength. He wasn’t like Dean who could eat crap and still be tough as nails. It took work. More work than it did ten years ago. Things ached now. One time when he was being checked for another friggin’ concussion, the ER doc had asked him about his back. “6’4” guys aren’t meant to be thrown around, the doc said. There’s a reason gymnasts are tiny.” Sam didn’t think too much about it at the time but he thought about it a lot more these days. Particularly after a hard hunt on a cold and rainy night.

            Nothing stopped Dean. That’s why Dean was the best hunter there was. Sam had reach on him. Sam could run faster than Dean. And Dean would still take him in any fight. Partly because Sam lived in his head and Dean lived in the world.

Despite all the hunting and training, Sam grew up in books. Truth was, he was kind of an old school Christian. Really old school, like 14th Century old school. He grew up learning and reading Latin texts and while a lot of them were classical texts—the _Aeneid_ and Cicero—most of the practical stuff was ecclesiastical: exorcisms and religious texts on magic and obscure works written by solitude-crazed monks. When he was a kid, he’d been steeped in religious writing. _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_. Guilt and original sin. Throw in a little Galahad and when he was twelve he’d wanted to join the Knights Templar and dedicate himself to defending Christianity. He really didn’t qualify as a Christian in any traditional sense of the word, especially now with what he knew about angels and demons and heaven but he was shaped by the narratives of sin and redemption, sacrifice and virtue.

            Dean had done a lot of things wrong and yet Sam knew beneath the bad boy swagger there was a purity to Dean. Not about sex and drinking but about who and what he was in a way that would never be true of Sam. In retrospect, it was obvious that Dean was something like the Michael Sword. He wasn’t a knight, he was a sword of some holy metal and he did what he did. A sword could harm the good and the bad depending on the hand that used it but the sword was what it was and Dean was what he was, forged to be what he was. A world of angels who were dicks and an absent God and ends justify the means was a screwed up place for a holy sword. In Purgatory he was relieved of all complications, of all the cluttered crap of humanity. No wonder it felt pure.

            Sam wasn’t drunk but he was feeling the beers and he wouldn’t be much good at research if he kept sitting here because thinking like this meant pretty soon he’d switch to whisky or scotch.

            Time to hit the laptop. Dean was still at the bar, the bartender drawn to Dean like a moth to a flame and Dean there burning, burning, extraordinary in an ordinary bar. Even people who didn’t believe there were monsters in the closet felt something around Dean.

            Sam slid out of the booth to tell Dean he was headed back to the room.

            Dean flashed a huge smile. “My production partner, Sam. Would you ever have expected to find someone special like Kristi here?”

            Production partner?

            “I was telling her that we don’t usually think about casting when we’re between projects,” Dean said with a grin that can only be described as shit-eating. “But we’re going to remember a fresh face like hers.”

            “I’m going back to the room,” Sam said. Winchester rules. Go with the improvisation. And don’t cockblock.

            “So early? Oh right, my friend here is doing the whole post rehab thing,” Dean said. Kristi looked at the beer bottles on the table. “Oh, not that kind of rehab.” Dean dropped his voice. “Industry secret, my partner here was the model for David Duchovny’s character in _Californication_. At least the sex addict part. But he’s working the program, right?”

            Kristi’s face was, it was impossible to deny, priceless.

            Sam rolled his eyes.

            Sometimes, Sam thought as he crossed the parking lot, he just got too caught up in his thoughts, spun a world of his own. Dean, on the other hand, lived in the real world all the time.

#

            Sam could find nothing about octopus-headed monsters. He hit Roman and Greek sources, he hit Japanese and southeast Asia sources. He needed the resources of the Men of Letters. Or Bobby.

            No wonder hunters ended up like Rufus, paranoid and bitter.

            Dean brought back lunch, dropping a bag by Sam. “Anything on calamari monsters?” Dean asked.

            “No,” Sam looked in the bag. It was a sub sandwich.

            “The salad looked hexed. Brown edges, limp. Scary. Ready to start chanting it’s own spells. I got you turkey.”

            Sam nodded. “Thanks. I can’t find a thing. I don’t know who to ask, either.”

            “Hit the library?” Dean’s sub had bacon, cheese and guacamole on it.

            “Guacamole in New England? There isn’t an avocado tree for a thousand miles,” Sam said.

            “S’okay,” Dean reached into his bag and pulled out a pint container. “I got clam ‘chowdah’. The white kind, not the vegetable soup imitation red kind.”

            “I can hear your arteries hardening from over here.”

            Dean smirked.

            “It’s a small town library,” Sam said, answering Dean’s original question. “I don’t think it’s going to have a lot on really obscure octopus-headed monsters. I can’t find any evidence that this is something that happened fifty years ago. The town genealogical society has a huge history website including ‘Hauntings of Lewiston, Mass. Best I can tell they’re all rumor or ganked.”

            Dean considered. “What about that Lovecraft dude?”

            “There’s more online about Lovecraft than there would be in a library.”

            The whole conversation was soothing, in a weird way. Sam was frustrated, sure. He didn’t want the next lead to come from a new victim. He wanted to stop this thing before anyone died. But right now Dean seemed normal, even if he was sure it was only the thinnest surface of normal. This is what hunting could still do, at least sometimes.

            Then Dean put down his sandwich half eaten and absently itched at his forearm. At the Mark. Sam could watch him lose focus. Like he’d used up all the ability to pass for normal he could muster.

            In a minute, Dean would look up and find Sam watching him and then he’d get angry. Accuse Sam of hovering. Sam looked back at the laptop and plugged something random into a search engine, just to sound as if he was working. It wasn’t that Dean would get angry. It’s that the anger would surface and latch on to whatever. Whatever being the nearest object at hand being Sam. Which he should not take personally but knowing that and doing that were two different things. The map is not the territory.

            The search term was ‘bible archeology first blade’ which is what his fingers typed automatically these days even though he knew all the search results.

            He deleted it and pulled up his IM and looked for Charlie. She was there. QueenOfMoondoor. Of course she was there. Charlie was more digital than she was physical.

            ‘got a research problem’ he typed.

            ‘hey bro nerdtastic what?’

            Dean got up and rummaged in his duffle, pulled out a bottle of something brown and alcoholic. Sam said nothing. Didn’t notice. He was not going there.

            ‘weird monster, head of an octopus body of a human dressed in ancient roman style clothing’

            The cursor blinked for a moment.

            ‘for reals or rpg’ Charlie typed.

            ‘for reals’ Sam typed.

            ‘no idea will get back to you’

            ‘can send victim photos’

            ‘awesomesauce’

            Sam smiled to himself. ‘what would it be rpg?’

            ‘d&d classic, mind flogger, u r toast’

            ‘y m I toast?’

            ‘u r psychic, dude, psychics roll a -5, you’d prob roll -10’ Charlie typed.

            ‘tx’ Sam said ‘luv u 2’

            ‘hows D?’

            ‘drinking his lunch’

            ‘owwie’

            Yeah, Sam thought. Owwie.

#

            The next crime scene pulled them out of the bar and it was bigger than the last. Lewiston had a mall with a big box discount store at one end that sold everything from groceries to clothes to towels and shampoo. The place was crawling with cops and paramedics when they got there.

            Inside the store it was crazy.

“Like someone had dropped a bomb of crazy right in the pink section of the toys,” said Detective Norris.

The paramedics were waiting but cops were in the store, raking the aisles. They were tense. There were a cluster of people being treated for injuries.

“You’ve got whoever did it in the store?”

Detective Norris shook his head. “I’ve got victims in the store.” Something screamed in the store. A feral, angry, animal scream. Detective Norris startled. “That’s one.”

“Any kids?” Sam asked. It had started in the toy section…

“No, not at this hour.” It was after eleven at night. “In store camera shows a person with their head cracked open like the sushi restaurant owner. Store employee, stocking shelves we think—”

They caught sight of a cop working through women’s clothing just as a guy in a hoodie came around the corner. Normal enough guy, receding hairline, except his face was completely transformed by rage. He made that same screaming sound and launched himself at the cop.

Sam didn’t even realize he was running.

The guy picked up the cop and threw him. Sam thought two clear things, one was that this guy’s adrenal glands were going to be the size of baseballs if they couldn’t calm him down and the other was that if Dean got hold of him and the Mark got hold of Dean, Dean would pound him to paste.

Sam grabbed rage guy just as he started punching the cop. He lifted him off the cop and several cops tackled him and rage guy. “GET HIM PINNED!” Sam kept shouting. Rage guy managed to knock him backwards into a rack of sweaters and he was momentarily tangled in bright pink knit and flowers and hangers. When he got free, Dean was in the mix, too. Rage guy elbowed Dean in the nose and Dean was grinning through the blood, a horrible grin.

Another howling, rage filled woman leapt onto the back of one of the cops. Fuck, Sam thought, how many were there?

Five, as it turned out. Five enraged people.

The last one was the most difficult. There were only fourteen cops on the force and six of them were injured in the fracas. The fifth rager was a beefy guy who got his hands around the neck of a young cop. They were still wrestling with two others and Dean got there first. He hauled the beefy guy off of the cop and single-handedly held beefy guy by the neck and wailed on him.

Sam was laying across the chest of a middle-aged woman while the cops restrained her when he caught a glimpse.

“Dean! Dean, stop! DEAN!”

He was off the woman in an instant, heading for his brother. “Dean,” deandeandean, don’t touch him, he’s not really here, he’s in the crazy zone. Got to get him back. “It’s Sam, listen to me,” he said. “DEAN! IT’S SAM!”

Something got through.

He could see a waiver.

“DEAN!”

Dean tightened his jaw, hit the guy again. Beefy guy sagged in his grip.

“It’s Sam! Listen! You did it, it’s over.”

“It’s never over,” Dean said between clenched teeth. But it _was_ because Dean was talking.

Sam moved behind the beefy guy. “I’ve got him,” Sam said, taking his arms. “You took care of him.” Carefully he tugged at the guy. Dean didn’t want to let go. He pulled again, and the guy sagged against him, then went mostly limp.

Sam laid him out on the floor. “EMS!” he yelled.

Dean just watched, breathing heavily.

#

            “Thanks for your help,” Detective Norris said. They were back out in the mall again, by the escalators, and fake plants, and the paramedics. “They must really work you guys at Quantico.” EMS had checked out Dean, nothing more than a bloody nose. Detective Norris had a sprained wrist. A middle-aged paramedic, a woman with bottle red hair and a no nonsense face, was wrapping it while they talked.

            “Yeah,” Sam said. Dean nodded. He was still doing the thousand yard stare. “So,” Sam said, “We’ve got dead employee at ground zero. We’ve got two people who are completely unconscious. (Not counting the guy Dean had knocked out—he’d come around and was back to raging.)

            “Coma-level unconscious,” paramedic said. “No reaction to stimuli.”

            “Then a bunch of people who are completely consumed by anger,” Sam said.

            “Won’t know until we really analyze the security footage,” said Detective Norris, “but it seems like the farther they were from the toy section, the more active they were. Dead, coma, angry.”

            “You’ve got a bunch of psych cases, too,” the paramedic said. “Weird ones.”

            “Weird how?” Sam asked.

            “A bunch of people believe that they’re dead. Like that lady over there.”

            A woman was sitting on the edge of a fountain. She looked fine for someone who thought they were dead.

            The paramedic indicated another person, a man standing next to a crying woman.

            “What’s wrong with her?” Sam asked.

            “Nothing. She’s the wife. He thinks she’s an imposter, an identical clone or something. We’ve got two of those. And a woman who thinks that Tim over there,” she pointed to one of paramedics, “is that actor from the TV show _Castle_ and he’s stalking her.” Tim was working on one of the rage women. “Do you know the show?” the paramedic asked.

            Sam shook his head.

            “The guy she thinks is stalking her, Nathan Fillion, is white.”

            Tim was black.

            Paramedic shrugged. “My church sponsored Tim. He’s a refugee from the Sudan. I’m pretty sure he’s not Nathan Fillion. Then we’ve got a bunch of people who are just terrified. They were in other parts of the store but they say all of the sudden they could just feel fear coming over them.”

            “Okay,” Detective Norris said. “So, some kind of aerosol? Like the Russians used on the Chechnyans only crazy-making? Some blackbox, NSA, CIA? You’re Feds, you ever heard anything about something like this?”

            Dean glanced at Sam and jerked his head like, walk with me. At least he was back in the game.

            “Give us a minute?” Sam said.

            They walked down the wide empty mall, their footsteps unnaturally loud, past the closed stores and the Orange Julius.

            “Are you all right?”

            “I’m fine,” Dean said.

            Sam couldn’t help it. He knew what his expression was but he couldn’t help it.

            “What do you want me to say?” Dean snapped. “We’re working here.”

            “Right. Then let me ask it a different way. Are you okay to work?” Sam said. It sounded like some of these people weren’t who they were supposed to be. Which could mean demons or angels.

“Yeah. And ganking some possessive demons sounds like a fun time to me,” Dean said.

It didn’t sound like a good thing to Sam, it sounded like feeding the Mark.

“Not first thing,” Dean said, as if he knew what Sam was thinking. Which he probably did. “Time to accidently spill some holy water.”

            Sam nodded. He and Dean split and he walked up to the woman who thought she was dead and flashed his badge.   “Sam Jones,” he said. “Can I ask you some questions?”

            She shrugged. He sat down next to her on the ledge of the fountain. She looked like a teacher or a manager of an office. She looked round and a little soft like someone’s mom. Her hair was blond but she needed to retouch her roots. She was wearing an old blue sweater. She had a shopping bag and it had colored markers and coffee creamer in it. She had a wedding ring.

            “What’s your name?”

            “Isabel,” she said.

            He fiddled with a flask. “Did you see anything unusual in there?”

            “I think that’s where I died,” she said.

            “I see,” he said as gently as he could. “Do you remember how?”

            She shook her head and watched without interest as he sprinkled a little holy water on her hand. Nothing happened. “I know ways to test if you’re dead,” he said. “I don’t think you are.”

            “I am,” she said.

            He took her hand. It was cold but not cold like the dead, more like cold of someone who was sitting on a cold ledge of a fountain in a mall. He poured a little salt in it. “Taste that.”

            She licked it off her palm.

            “Salt makes ghosts go away,” he explained.

            She shook her head. “I’m not a ghost, I’m just dead.”

            He dug out a sharpie and drew the sigil to dispel angels. He palmed it. No flashes of light. Then he laid a silver blade against the skin of her arm and nicked her as slightly as he could. She watched him without interest. “I think you should call your husband,” he said.

            She nodded but she didn’t. Sam took her purse, “May I?” he asked.

She shrugged.

            He pulled out her phone. “Call your husband and tell him to come get you, okay?”

            She took the phone and dutifully called. “Gary? I’m at the mall, can you come get me?”

            Sam stood up and looked for Dean. Dean was standing by the woman who thought the paramedic was Nathan Fillion except it appeared she now thought Dean was Nathan Fillion.

            “You have to stop following me!” she said.

            Dean held his hands up, palms out. “You got it lady,” he said.

            Sam suspected Dean didn’t look much like Nathan Fillion, either.

#

            They had barely gotten back to the hotel when Sam’s cell rang. “Detective Norris?”

            “You guys need to come down to the station. I’ve got the security footage.”

            Norris sounded rattled.

            Dean said, “Video of the seafood special?”

            “We’ll be right there,” Sam said.

            When they got to the station, Norris looked like all the wind had been knocked out of him. “I don’t know,” he kept saying. “It’s gotta be a costume or something.”

            Sam sympathized with the guy. He was tired and wanted a shower and some sleep. Dean, on the other hand, was amped up. Happy even. Spoiling for a fight.

            The surveillance footage showed pretty much what the kid from the sushi restaurant had described. It was black and white. First there was just some guy in a vest stocking a rack with toy cars or something, then the glitch, a band of white static running across the image, and then behind him, the thing, whatever it was. The stock guy seemed to know it was there without turning around. He froze and even in the grainy surveillance feed Sam could see his mouth open in a scream of terror. It had the head of an octopus all right. It had tentacles that reached for the guy’s head and wrapped around it and tightened. It took what seemed like an unreasonably long time but Sam was counting in his head and it was really only about ten seconds. Ten agonizing seconds for the poor guy. And then his head split open in five or six parts.

            “Sheer pressure like that,” Dean remarked. “That’s Terminator-in-a-hydraulic-press pressure.”

That was one observation you could make. Norris looked uncomfortable.

            It bent over to feed. It was wearing something out of an ancient civilization. Some sort of linen with a kind of heavier tunic skirt that went to it’s knees. Sandals. It had muscular arms and legs. Dark, like it was brown, not fair skinned.

            Norris was watching them. “You guys…know what this is?”

            “Not a clue,” Dean said cheerfully.

            “But, but you don’t seem surprised.”

            “We’ve seen some weird stuff,” Dean said.

            “Yeah, anvils,” Norris said. “This isn’t an anvil.”

            “It’s a monster,” Sam said.

            “Monsters r’ Us,” Dean said. On the screen, octopus-head straightened up in the toy department and then disappeared. Not the best time for that line. Dean had the grace to look embarrassed.

            “The FBI has a monster task force?” Norris asked.

            “We’re not really FBI,” Sam said.

            “Give ‘im the talk, Sammy,” Dean said, rubbing his hands together. “This one is gonna be interesting. I can tell.”

            Detective Norris took some convincing. Sam ran the surveillance footage and they watched the tentacles. Norris had to concede it really probably wasn’t a mask but ghosts? Sam pointed to the thing on the screen and asked the obvious question, “You can believe in that but not believe in ghosts?”

            “What was the giant anvil?” Norris asked.

            “Don’t ask,” Sam said. “If you want, I can give you a phone number for a sheriff who will back us up. Her name is Jodi Mills. Or you can look up her bona-fides and call her yourself. Just tell her you’re calling to find out if Sam and Dean are on the up and up.”

            “You give references?”

            “Are you guys gonna play footsie all night?” Dean asked. He was studying a bulletin board memo on how a squad car was supposed to be laid out. Where the shotgun went, what was supposed to be in the trunk and how it was supposed to be stowed. He was antsy, up on the balls of his feet.

            “So the guy at the attack died, and the two people nearest are in a coma,” said Detective Norris. “A bunch of people close to them are in straight jackets because they’re in ‘roid rage.”

            “Then there are a bunch of people who either think that they’re dead or that someone is stalking them or their loved ones have been replaced,” Sam pointed out. “And then there are people who just ‘felt fear.’”

            “So what do you think?”

            “I think the farther away, the less the effect,” Sam said. “Like ripples.”

            “That’s…great. How do we stop it?”

            “It’s probably not going to take another victim tonight,” Sam said.

            “Why do you say that?” Norris said.

            “No reason,” Sam said, “except that hunting takes a lot of energy out of any creature.”

            “It’s taken three victims now. It’s sped up and it’s escalated its attacks,” Dean said. “Two attacks, two nights in a row. It’s got its game on.”

            “Getting stronger, maybe?” Sam said.

            “Hungrier,” Dean suggested, and unconsciously itched his forearm.

            Norris said, “You’re trying to determine the motive of a monster?”

            “Never thought of it that way,” Sam said, “but yeah. With a monster we look for the same thing you guys do.”

            “Motive, means, and opportunity,” Norris said. “What qualifies for ‘means’ and ‘opportunity’ for a monster?”

            Dean shrugged. “Location, sometimes. Especially with a ghost.”

            Norris got a map and they plotted the attacks. Drew a triangle. Nothing particular about the triangle. It was after three in the morning. “I’m done,” Sam announced.

            “C’mon Sam.” Dean said. “We’ve barely started.”

            “I’m getting too old for this shit,” Norris said. “Two more years and I’ve got thirty years in service for pension.”

            “C’mon big brother,” Sam said, “call it a night.” He stood up and stretched, spine cracking. Dean looked sullen.

            Norris started laughing. Sam looked down.

            “I bet not many people call you ‘little’,” Norris said.

            “Little, bony, princess, people call him lots of things,” Dean said. “Bitch.”

            “Jerk,” Sam said.

#

            Dean didn’t sleep more than four hours a night on a hunt under normal circumstances so it shouldn’t have been surprising to have been woken up.

            “Sam, the Queen of the Nerds wants you. Sam. SAM!”

            “Jesus, Dean.” Dean was sitting in front of Sam’s laptop.

            “I got you coffee, your ladyship.”

            Sam had been dreaming something about being in a post-apocalyptic parking garage looking for the Impala only it had also been a motel and Bobby had been checked into one of the other rooms but he couldn’t remember which one and they were low on gas—in other words, a normal person dream, not a vision or proof that Sam was actually psychotic.

            “You downloaded porn,” Sam said. He sat down and sipped his coffee. Not hot but close enough.

            “I didn’t,” Dean said.

            “You did.”

            “Watching it is not downloading it.”

            Sam sighed. “Like you know the difference.”

            “What does Charlie want?” Dean said.

            “She’s researching calamari creatures.”

            “Don’t get Charlie involved in shit, okay Sam?” Dean said.

            “It’s just research,” Sam said.

            Charlie had typed, ‘Sam’

            Dean had typed, ‘its dean ill get him’

            Charlie had typed, ‘hi Deanster!’

            ‘It’s Sam’ Sam typed.

            ‘edgar allan sam!’

            ‘be nice I haven’t had coffee’ he typed.

            ‘people who haven’t had coffee rarely use apostrophes’ she typed back.

            That made him smile. ‘any luck?’

            ‘maybe a little’ Charlie typed.

            ‘?????????’ Sam typed.

            ‘found an article in an old issue of Strategic Review’

            ‘what’s that?’

            ‘gamer magazine so old it’s on mimeograph but some fanboy uploaded jpegs and my eyes are bleeding’

            ‘you’re hardcore, C’ he typed.

            ‘so most sources say floggers are totally made up but this guy says he was the roommate of the big G who invented the game and he was studying ancient mediterranean civ and the floggers are based on this crazy phoenician cult god also big in minoa’

            ‘o m g’

            ‘look at you all hip with the jargon’ Charlie typed.

            Sam grinned.

            “What?” Dean said. “What’s funny? You guys are ragging on me.”

            “No,” Sam said, “She’s got something.”

            ‘what else?’ Sam typed.

            ‘that’s it I told you not much’

            ‘it’s a start yer royal highness’ Sam typed.

            “What is it?” Dean asked.

            “A Phoenician cult deity,” Sam said.

            ‘love to our dean, sylb’

            “And ‘love to our Dean, smell you later bitches’,” Sam said.

            “So what does that mean?”

            “It’s just what Charlie always says,” Sam said and took a sip of almost hot coffee.

            “No, asshat, the Phoenix thing,” Dean said.

            “Phoenician. Ancient trading civilization in what is now the middle east.” Sam googled. “Oh, cool, they invented the alphabet.”

            “Anything about how to kill it?”

            Nothing in Phoenicia or Minoa online. This would take a Bobby library or the Men of Letters archives or the roommate of the guy who invented D&D. He tried to think of who he knew who he could call for help. Everybody was dead except Charlie and Garth. Garth didn’t handle research on this level and was out of hunting. Charlie…Charlie was on her own.

            He shouldn’t have contacted Charlie. He shouldn’t bring Charlie into things. Charlie didn’t have anyone watching her back except him and Dean (and that didn’t go so well for people. Or angels. Or demons. His list of the dead included Jess, Dad, Bobby, Frank, Castiel—even if Castiel was alive at the moment—even Meg.) Don’t touch me, he thought, I have become radioactive. I poison even myself.

            Back to business.

            “What about water,” Sam said.

            “Talk to me Brain,” Dean said. “What are we gonna do tonight?”

            They spread out the map again. Sam was thinking that the Phoenicians and the Minoans were both maritime cultures. Water was their livelihood. Octopus head had to need water.

            The link was the Androscoggin River. Every attack had been near where the river wandered through the town. It wasn’t exactly the location of the next attack but it was a start.

            So they walked the river. It turned out there were both better and worse ways to spend a day. It was nice because the Auburn Riverwalk was pretty and pleasant and bordered by cafes and shops and a KFC, and the reservoir was rocky and kind of nifty. It was not so nice because it was chilly and raining. They ended up at a gastropub called Gritty McDuff’s that Dean hated on sight.

            “They have lamb burgers,” Dean said. “Baby animals served with mint sauce.”

            “And calamari,” Sam observed.

            Dean stared at the menu in disbelief. “They have a burger with black beans on it. Now that’s just gross.”

            Dean got a cheeseburger and Sam got a turkey club and Dean complained about the beer selection.

            In the middle of the river was an island called Boxer Island. It was uninhabited and heavily wooded and they both agreed that if they were a monster it would be where they would hunker down. Mt. Auburn Ave crossed the river there. They hoped that since all the attacks were at night, maybe it slept in the day.

            “That’s kind of a big ‘if’,” Sam said.

            “You got a better idea?” Dean said.

            Normally he would have said more research but he was thinking there wasn’t going to be much information on this.

            He did manage to look up ‘people who think they are dead’ and found there was a syndrome. Cotard’s Syndrome. He also found Capgras Syndrome, where someone believes people have been replaced by someone who looks exactly like them—how many of those people were just reacting to a demon, he wondered—and Fregoli Syndrome, where someone believes that different people are actually someone in disguise. He decided to think of it as Nathan Fillion syndrome.

            Sam called Detective Norris and asked him if he could help them get to the island. Dean wasn’t to thrilled with the idea of abandoning the Impala on the Veterans Memorial Bridge and the highway was limited access which meant walking to the bridge would draw attention.

            Norris got them a boat.

A little police boat piloted by a rather excited rookie cop named Junior Pichardo. Junior was Dominican-American and had been born in New York City but his mother had moved to Maine to get away from crime. Pichardo was the Spanish version of ‘Picard’, like Star Trek. Junior loved being a cop and loved talking about being a cop and in the twenty minutes they were on the boat Sam learned a lot about Junior and he watched Dean slide further and further into some place in his head. Not good. He couldn’t bring himself to tell the kid to shut up.

            There was no dock, just a spit of dirty gritty ‘beach’ where they could climb out of the boat. Dean stepped over the edge of the boat into the shallow water. “Fuck.” The little boat rocked.

            “Stay with the boat,” Sam said to the rookie cop. “If you hear shooting and we aren’t back in two minutes, leave.”

            “Leave?” Pichardo says. “What about back-up?”

            “No back-up. Leave.”

            For the first time, Pichardo looked like he didn’t know what to say.

            “Come on, Sam,” Dean said.

            Sam handed him the duffle full of stuff and stepped carefully off the boat. He wasn’t great at boats and the way it wallowed for a moment he thought he was going to end up face down in the river but he managed to retain some measure of dignity. River water filled his boots, shockingly cold.

            He hated wet feet.

            The underbrush was thick. They had silver in their guns and each had a shotgun and a wooden stake. Dean had the demon knife and Sam had an iron knife and a bronze knife because, what the hell. Sam wondered if it was killed by a shofer washed in lamb’s blood or a certain kind of metal dipped in seawater or something. No sense wondering.

            “You think it’s got like a nest or something?” Sam asked.

            Dean shrugged.

            “Wish we had a wood chipper.”

            “Shut up, Sam.”

            Bite me, Sam thought, but he didn’t say anything.

            They scoured the island, working through a grid they had mapped out, walking six feet apart. They were figuring it would take about two hours but they underbrush was worse than they expected. Uneven ground, fallen trees. Sam was clambering down a ravine when he saw water. There was a rain fed stream that opened out into a kind of pool or pond, water spilling off a ridge of stone. Dean was up on the ridgeline more than a dozen feet away.

            “Dean,” he said quietly. Clustered along the side of the pond were gelatinous globes maybe half a foot across. Inside them were things that pulsed—at first he thought like tadpoles but of course they were much more like octopi. “I think I found a nest.”

            Dean looked down. “World’s scariest caviar.”

            “So it’s a mom,” Sam said. “Explains why she’s so hungry.  What have we got that will kill them?”

            “Gasoline?” Dean tossed the duffle bag.

            Sam opened the bag. Gasoline and Borax and lots of salt. He kind of hated to use gasoline here. The place looked pristine. But if it was a choice between a little gasoline pollution and an infestation of octopus monsters there wasn’t a lot of—

            He felt it even before Dean said anything, a terrible dread.

            “Sam!” Dean’s gun cracked and cracked again. “It’s here!”

            The sense of terror didn’t stop. This was something that John Winchester had trained his boys for, to act without thinking. Drill after drill after drill. Ghosts induced terror. Monsters often induced terror. Twelve year old Sam had been woken in the middle of the night by a sound and when he got himself moving and out the door, met by his father with a stopwatch. _Twelve seconds, Sam. Dean’s dead._ The Winchesters ran _towards_ monsters.

            Sam grabbed the duffle bag and started climbing the hill. Dean was running towards something, emptying his automatic.

            “DEAN!” Sam scrabbled in the brush, grabbing saplings to climb, reached the top and ran. He reached behind himself to pull his own gun. The duffle, slung over his shoulder, slammed him in the side with every stride. “DEAN!”

            He found his brother crouched, gun out. “Where is it?” Sam whispered.

            Dean whirled around, eyes wide. He stared at Sam for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “It disappeared.”

            “We’ve got to destroy the eggs,” Sam said.

            “The kid in the boat, he’ll take off,” Dean said.

            “S’okay,” Sam said. His heart was still pounding. He was still scared. “We can hike out on the bridge. Did you hit it?”

            “I don’t know,” Dean said again.

            “You okay?” Sam asked.

            “Yeah. Yeah.”

            Then they heard the scream.

            “Fuck,” Dean said, “the kid. Get the eggs!”

            Sam ran back towards the nest. He hoped he’d feel it if the thing came back. He slid down the ravine and pulled out his knife and slashed open an egg. He poured borax into it and then gasoline. The little octopus thingy inside had no human body but it only had six tentacles. When the borax hit it, it squirmed and tried to get away and when the gasoline was added it curled up. Sam kept slitting and boraxing and adding gasoline. There were about two dozen eggs. All the time he felt like something was at his back.

            Then he was up and running in the direction of the scream.

            At the water he found Dean and the kid. The kid was on the little spit of grit, his head split open. Sam felt the sudden weight of it. Add another death to the long list of the dead.

            “I told him to leave,” Sam said.

            Dean squinted at him and said, “Sam?”

            “I got the eggs. Cut them open and poured borax and gas on them. Should kill them.”

            “You think they’re _leviathans_?” Dean said, like Sam had lost his mind.

            “No, I just think they’re not ready to hatch and borax isn’t good for premature monsters.”

            Dean wanted to check.

            Then it was in the trees. The weird thing was its eyes. It’s eyes could pivot independently. They both looked at Dean. Waves of terror came off of it.

            “GO!” Sam yelled. “GET IN THE BOAT!”

            Dean hauled Pichardo’s body into the boat, nearly swamping it.

            Sam fired at the monster and it disappeared.

            Dean got the boat’s motor started as Sam managed to get into the boat, falling across the gunwale. At least they hadn’t been close enough to fall into a rage.

#

            Dean was barely talking to him. Pissed. Staring. Dean was pissed a lot these days, Sam was used to it. They had called Norris and the coroner had met them. Then a couple of hours at the station. Norris promised them that he would manage to keep them out of the paperwork as much as possible and hold back the rest until they were gone. (Or, Sam thought, dead.)

            They climbed into the Impala and Sam fought to keep from falling asleep right there in the passenger seat. Nerves kept him awake, though. That and wet feet. Hie didn’t squish when he walked anymore but his boots were still soggy. He thought about how to get to the monster. They couldn’t get near it, not even in the day. He had an idea although Dean was going to call him nerd boy forever.

            He was going to have to get in touch with Charlie and tell her that it was a Mind Flogger and she got credit for naming it. Also, that she should run if she ever came across one.

            He couldn’t shake his sense of fear. Some residual monster terror. Dean’s mood didn’t help. Thank God Dean hadn’t been close enough for rage. If the monster incited him to rage, with the Mark of Cain, Dean would be unstoppable. Given the way Dean was looking at him now he’d have more than a hammer buried in his skull.

            “Did you get the wave of terror off that thing,” Sam asked, keeping his voice light.

            “No,” Dean said. “I was too far away.”

            Dean was closer to the monster than he was. The effects spread out like rings of water, ripples. Coma closest to the thing. Then Rage. Then crazy things like believing you’re dead. Then Terror. _Dean was closer to it than Sam_. And Sam had been terrified.

            Dean didn’t seem to think he was dead. So what did he think?

            They pulled into the motel parking lot. Sam opened the door just like it was every day.

And then ran.

            Sam was fast. Faster than Dean. It was his only advantage, that and the fear he hadn’t been able to shake. Dean was a better hunter and if Dean thought Sam was someone else, a stalker or an imposter, then Dean was willing to hurt and Sam wasn’t.

            Neither of them was in top shape. Dean had been drinking with Crowley for four months and then nearly died being cured. Sam had been laid up with a bad shoulder and not training.

            He ran away from the bar, sticking to the rain slicked road, black asphalt with pine trees. He could hear Dean pounding behind him, not yelling, and that was a bad sign. Dean should be yelling. Stop or what the fuck. A straightaway was Sam’s friend. If Dean got him running on uneven ground or got him chasing through buildings, then it was hunting.

            He almost tripped at the first gunshot. Luckily it’s hard to run and shoot. But it meant he had to really think about whether to run straight or evade. He kept running. And the second shot was through the shoulder and he went down.

            Then Dean was on top of him, yanking his arms back. He couldn’t keep from yelling. And it was his bad shoulder. Fuck fuck fuck.

            “Shut up!” Dean hissed.

            Someone had to have heard the gunshot, Sam thought. Please. But the motel was on the edge of town. The road was empty this late in the evening. His cheek was against wet and tiny bits of gravel and his hair was in his eyes.

            “Make another sound and I’ll slit your throat,” Dean said. His voice was the voice he used with monsters. Dean hauled Sam to his knees and Sam couldn’t help making some sound, specks dancing in front of his eyes. Dean let him pant through the pain for a moment.

            “You want to get to your feet? Or you want help?” The way Dean said ‘help’ was not encouraging. Sam got one foot under him and stood up. Oh God his shoulder was hurting so bad he thought he might throw up. Lean into the pain, he thought. Just don’t fight it. You know pain. Pain is your friend, you can handle pain. As long as you’ve got reality, you’re not in the Cage, you can deal.

            Dean kept one arm twisted behind his back and walked him back to the motel.

            Bullets are hot when they come out of a gun. People never tell you that, Sam thought. They don’t just hurt, they’re hot. Although they don’t stay hot because, face it, they aren’t very big. He was bleeding in front as well which was good because that meant it was through and through. Lucky that. The shoulder blade is a big, flat bone and a lot of times the bullet smacks up against it, gets all flattened or worse, shatters. If it had shattered, that would mean surgery and lots of damage. On the other hand, he couldn’t get on top of the fear and that meant his heart rate was up and he was bleeding too much.

            Christ he had to stop thinking a hundred miles a minute and focus. Dean. Dean was going to lose his shit when he realized what he’d done. Besides frog marching Sam back down the road and across the motel parking lot to the Impala where he opened up the trunk and then the compartment under the trunk and pulled out handcuffs.

            Sam managed to sweep his leg under Dean’s while Dean was half turned, reaching for handcuffs, not bringing Dean down but allowing Sam to twist away, and he was running again, but he every step jarred his shoulder in white hot pain and Dean was so fast he barely got a couple of strides before Dean tackled him.

            When he could see and think again he was on the ground and Dean was laughing in his ear. “Stubborn fucker,” Dean said.

            Dean duck taped his mouth shut and hauled him to his feet. Sam couldn’t see it all hurt so much, staggering and then tripping over the lip of the Impala’s trunk. Dean folded his legs in and slammed the trunk shut.

            For a few moments Sam didn’t even bother to care. His heart pounded. His shoulder felt, well, like he’d been shot. The Impala rumbled to life and the brake lights and then the back-up lights came on. The fear was overwhelming. He just let himself feel all of it. Whined with pain and fear behind the silver duct tape in the dark. Was scared and in pain.

            He knew those feelings. Let them wash over him and let himself drown because he’d learned that he never did. They just became…feelings. Lucifer could stop and start his sense of time. Could bend reality within the Cage. Could make him think he was anywhere. Could set him on fire or freeze him solid. Could make it so that by looking at people Sam’s eyes incinerated them and then put all the people he ever cared about in his path. Could make existence a pinball game and make angels and demons talk in his head.

            This was just pain and fear. If it went on too long, the worst that would happen is that he’d die and it didn’t take that much to kill him. Not that much, at least, by Cage standards. It was weirdly reassuring. He was just a human.

            Dean thought he was someone else, a perfectly reasonable belief for them. There had been times when Sam was someone else. Meg. Lucifer. Gadreel. A leviathan. The question was what to do to keep Dean from killing him because Sam didn’t want to die and because it would kill Dean if he killed Sam. Assuming Dean was ever sane again. Sam tried to think why Dean hadn’t killed him already.

            The Impala turned off the highway and drove for awhile. The taillights were red nightlights. Sam closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart. Think of good things. The problem was that every thing he tried to think of was stained with guilt or pain. Bobby’s library or couch, gone in fire. Stanford led to Jess. Brady was a demon. Home was the passenger seat of the Impala and that was what used to be the safest place but too many tense miles—racing away from raising Lucifer, Lucifer taunting him from the back seat, and most of all, Dean. Dean and the Mark. Dean and demon eyes. Dean telling him he was a monster. Everything about Dean was so complicated.

            The sound of road changed to gravel. The ride got jarring and that hurt. Sam moaned and gave himself over to it.

            Then it stopped and the engine shut off and the brake lights went out.

            The air smelled wet and it was misting when Dean opened the trunk. It smelled of pitch and woods. Middle of nowhere. It was fucking dark then Sam was blinded by flashlight beam.

            Dean grabbed his good arm and hauled him out of the trunk. Sam protested but—duct tape.

            It was an abandoned house, clapboard worn gray by age. Inside, Dean let go of Sam and Sam’s legs gave out. He sprawled. Immediately he tried to get his legs underneath him.

            “Don’t run,” Dean said. “I’ll just run you down again, asshole. Don’t kick, I’m looking for an excuse to gut you.” He pulled Sam’s legs out and taped his ankles together. Then he walked off.

            Sam couldn’t see anything without the flashlight.

            After a bit he heard Dean coming back. Dean thunked something down behind Sam’s head and then hauled Sam up and sat him in it. A wooden kitchen chair. He took the tape off Sam’s ankles and then taped each leg to a chair. Then he left again.

            Sam knew the drill here. Interrogation. He watched the procedure—lantern, rope, and knives from the trunk of the Impala. His nerves hummed like electrical wires. Dean left the cuffs on and tied him around the middle to the chair. It didn’t have armrests.

            Beggars can’t be choosers.

            Last, Dean took the duct tape off Sam’s mouth. “Where’s my brother?” he said conversationally.

            Sam closed his eyes and braced himself. “I am your brother,” he said.

            It was worse anticipating the punch.

            “Let’s try that again,” Dean said. “Where’s my brother?”

            “Dean, it’s me. It’s Sam. This is an effect of the mon-” Fuck, his brother punched hard. He couldn’t see for a moment.

            “Then why did you run?” Dean asked. “Need the exercise? Training for the Special Olympics?”

            “Because you were in the circle of syndrome and I was farther out, in the circle of fear,” Sam said. “And I finally realized what you must be thinking, since you didn’t think you were dead. Test me, Dean.”

            Dean picked up a knife, silver. He ran it down Sam’s cheek.

            “I’m not a shifter,” Sam said.

            Dean nicked his neck. “No, you aren’t.” He tried holy water, poured salt into Sam’s mouth. Sam sputtered. Then borax.

            Dean squatted in front of him. “Interesting. What are you?”

            “Can I have some water? I’m thirsty, from bleeding and a mouthful of salt.”

            “Maybe old Octopus-Head can take human form,” Dean said.

            “Wouldn’t I just whip out my tentacles now and bust your head open?” Sam asked.

            “Maybe,” Dean said. “What have you done with Sam? If he’s dead, I’ll kill you and take a very long time at it.”

            “It’s just me,” Sam said. “Dean, I want you to remember, I know you don’t have any choice right now. I don’t think of this as you hurting me—”

            Admittedly hard not to think of it as Dean hurting him when it was Dean’s fist.

            Dean picked up the demon blade. Fuck fuck fuck. “Look, if I was occupying your brother’s body, you’d want him to have it to come back to, right?”

            “I can do a lot of painful things without really causing any lasting damage,” Dean said.

            “I know,” Sam said, resigned.

#

            Cold water brought him conscious. Dean didn’t seem to realize how much he was bleeding. It was the Mark. The Mark liked this. Liked blood. Liked pain. Liked violence.

            “All you have to do is tell me where Sam is,” Dean said oh so softly.

            Through swollen lips Sam said, “I was with you the whole time. When did someone substitute me for Sam?”

            “When Sam went to kill the eggs,” Dean said. “He went, you came back. I knew the moment you stepped on boat.”

            Think. So hard to think when his head was so…blurred. “You gotta stop the, the monster.”

            “I can if you’re the monster. Otherwise, we found out it doesn’t sleep in the day,” Dean said. “We can’t get close. I need my brother’s big brain to help me figure that out. You’re in the way.”

            “I had an idea,” Sam slurred.

            “Run it past me, monster boy.”

            Sam lost the thread. He had an idea. What was it. Dean. He felt sick and cold and he couldn’t think because of the monster fear. But he had to stay alive because if he didn’t, the Mark of Cain was going to turn Dean into a demon again. Crowley and Dean. What was he—oh, an idea. About— “Right, we can’t get close to it. So napalm. Or Molotov cocktails.”

            “We can’t get close enough to throw them,” Dean said. The tip of the demon knife was right under Sam’s chin, forcing his head up. Sam’s head kept sagging down towards his chest and Dean wanted Sam to look at him. Dean’s eyes were hard to see. It was dark even with the lantern and it was hard to focus on anything.

            “They sell those, those helicopter drone thingies. Remote control. And those, those, cameras. What are they called. Go Pros. Get a bunch, fly over, drop napalm and Molotov cocktails. Remember when Dad told us how to make—”

            The slap almost spun Sam into darkness. “You don’t get to call him ‘Dad’,” Dean snapped.

            “Sorry, what do you want me to call him.” Everything Sam said sounded thick, his mouth was swollen .

            “John Winchester.”

            “John Winch’ster told us to make napalm; canned frozen orange juice, sugar, gasoline. Drop on creature.”

            “Is Sam still alive?”

            “Yes,” Sam said. “I can promise you that. Kill the monster if you want Sam back.”

            “If you’re lying to me,” Dean said.

            Sam nodded. He knew the consequences. “Water,” he whispered.

            Dean finally gave him water.

            He let himself close his eyes. He’d played his hand. He didn’t want Dean to go back after the monster alone but he didn’t know what else to do and at least with the drones, Dean maybe wouldn’t be close to it. He needed to tell him more—find people who could fly them. Find someone who could build stuff to make the mechanisms to release the flammables. Get help.

            He heard the Impala leaving. Time had made a little jump without him noticing.

            Next time he opened his eyes, it was dawn. The fear from the monster was still there. He knew he was in trouble. He could feel his heart beating. So thirsty. It was all more than just being smacked around.

            He had to hold on for Dean to get back. Dean was not going to be able to handle it.

            “Cas,” he whispered. “Dean’s in trouble. I’m sorry, I know things aren’t so great for you right now and we’re always asking you for favors but he is and it isn’t just the Mark. I need you to take care of him if something happens, okay? I’m trying to hang on here and I’m going to, I swear, but you gotta take care of him for me if...”

            Sam closed his eyes and it seemed like that’s all he did but when he opened them again it was bright outside and he didn’t know how much time had passed. Just that he couldn’t get his thoughts together. There was light on the floor from the window.

            Dean. Dean dean dean. The light from the window was like a sundial. It moved across the floor in jumps. He’d watch it and close his eyes, just for a moment it seemed, and the light would be a few feet farther.

He’d fucked up somehow with Dean and he couldn’t remember exactly how. He felt like shit. Dean was in trouble and pissed. He was scared and had been, the fear was something almost outside of him. Evening coming on and the weight of the fear.

There was noise but the fear was gone. Maybe he was dying? He couldn’t exactly remember what it felt like to die. He felt himself moving. Being moved.

            “Can you hear me? Sam? Your name is Sam, right?”

            He rose to light and gasped like a swimmer coming to the surface of the water. He was on his back and there was a man leaning over him.

            “Sam, can you hear me? We’re going to take you to the hospital, get you help.”

            What was this guy doing? He couldn’t go to the hospital. He had to wait for Dean.

            So he gathered his energy and swung. He had to fight. He felt his fist connect with the guy’s jaw.

            People were around him, trying to hold him down but he was desperate because Dean was going to come back and he had fucked up somehow and he had to be here when Dean got back.

            He must have been yelling Dean’s name because he could hear Dean yelling, “SAM! SAM!”

            Dean was there. Sam tried to focus.

            He felt Dean’s hands and he grabbed, felt Dean’s arms, Dean’s biceps. “I waited,” he said. “I’m here, Dean,” he said.

            “Let ‘em help you, Sam!” Dean said. Dean sounded hoarse and upset.

            “I fucked up,” Sam said even though he couldn’t exactly remember how.

            “You didn’t, you’re gonna be okay,” Dean said.

            He wasn’t sure what that meant but Dean wasn’t pissed so that was something in the plus column.

            “Let’s get him on the gurney,” someone was saying, “One, two, THREE.” Weightless moment. Something on his arm. “BP 85 over 70, heart rate of 101.” More noise, more numbers. Somebody was talking about Ringers which meant a fucking IV. He hated IVs. He was thirsty, couldn’t they just give him something to drink?

            Little time jump. He had an oxygen mask and he was in a moving vehicle.

            “Sam?” The man again. “You with us?”

            “Dean? My brother.”

            “He’s following us to the hospital. Don’t hit me, okay?” He thought the man smiled but everything was out of focus was really dark around the edges.

            Sam nodded. Closed his eyes. He was starting to hurt again.

            “Can you stay with me?”

            Sam opened his eyes, looked at the guy. The pain was coming back in waves and Sam was tired of it. EMT. Right. Probably not going to give morphine.

            “Look at me Sam. Stay with me, okay?” the EMT said.

            Fuck ‘em. “No,” Sam said and let go.

            Next time he opened his eyes it was that thing where they are wheeling you through the ER and all you can see is the ceiling: fluorescent light ceiling tiles fluorescent light ceiling tiles. He hoped to god he didn’t end up intubated. He couldn’t remember what had happened but he hated hospitals and he really hated being intubated. Maybe as soon as he was halfway together they could blow this place and go to Bobby’s as long as he didn’t end up in the fucking panic room…

            Reality moved in fits and starts, blood bag on an IV pole, poking in his bad shoulder, Dean saying, “Just let them work on you, Sammy,” and a dreamy time until he woke up in a dark hospital room. He wasn’t clear yet. Dean was there. “Come on,” Dean said. “We gotta go, Sam. Insurance card won’t hold and the real FBI is going to show up.”

            This was the way it always was. Never ready. Dean had blue scrubs for him. Dean sat him up and talked to him while Sam tried to figure out armholes. “Your kidneys are back to doing kidney things, Sammy. I got your pills. Now slide your legs over so I can put the pants on. Can you stand?”

            “IV,” Sam said.

            “Right,” Dean said. “Wait.” Dean was good with IVs. Not so great at finding a vein, although he could with a little digging. Sam had great veins. Their dad did, too. Dean’s veins were so-so but Sam was pretty good with lock picking and veins and perfect stitches. Dean gently pulled the IV. Sam looked up. Nothing hanging. Just keeping something there in case. In case what?

            Later. He’d get everything straight later.

            He swung his legs off the bed. Fuck, he didn’t have any boxers on. Dean helped him get his feet in the leg holes. “Stand up, Sammy.” Sam stood up carefully, swayed through the dizziness, hands on Dean’s shoulders to steady himself, and Dean pulled the pants up.

            Sam was in a double. His roommate was an old black guy with thin white hair and an oxygen cannula. The guy was bony and small, laying on his side with his knees drawn up, watching. He said, “Making a run for it?” in a papery voice.

            Sam nodded.

            The guy gave him a thumbs up.

            “Okay,” Dean said. “Got your shoes. Gimme your feet, Sammy.”

            “I—” Sam’s voice was a croak. Fuck, had they had him on a vent? Dean poured him a cup of water and Sam sipped it, then drank. Didn’t feel as if they’d had him intubated. He was just so dry. “Thanks,” he said. Better. He could talk. “I can do my shoes if I can sit in a chair.”

            Dean helped him shuffle to a chair and handed him his boots.

            “They’re damp,” Sam said, confused. “How’d they get damp?”

            “It was raining,” Dean said. “We gotta get going.”

            “Insurance won’t hold,” Sam said.

            “Yeah. Sorry kiddo. You okay when you lean over? I can do that for you.”

            “Fuck off,” Sam said without any real rancor. He did feel floaty when he leaned over but he could get his socks and boots on. He just hated wet feet. Dean pulled out a comb and combed his hair and then clipped a badge on him.

            Then he put his arm out and Dean hauled him to his feet. He almost kept going.

            “You okay?” Dean asked.

            Sam frowned in concentration and took a deep breath and found some sort of center. “Peachy,” he said carefully. He knew he sounded drunk.

            “Let’s dance,” Dean said. He took Sam’s arm and walked him to the door.

            “Good night,” Sam said to his roommate.

            The hallway was brightly lit. Sam blinked. All the lights had halos. It occurred to him that they had doped him up on painkillers. Well, that wasn’t so bad. Dean held onto his arm until they got almost to the nurse’s station and then let go and Sam skated past the nurse’s station. He couldn’t actually tell if he was walking in a straight line or not. Hell, he couldn’t tell if there was a floor. He just concentrated on walking.

            Then Dean had his arm again. “Great job, Sammy.”

            “Yeah,” Sam exhaled.

            A maze of hallways, elevators, hallways, parking garage—it was cold and windy and Dean was swearing, “Crap, sorry, should have brought a coat, crap crap crap, just this way and then we’ll be at the car, you’re doing great, really great, come on big guy…”

            Sam put his hand on the cold metal roof of the Impala while Dean opened the passenger door and then Dean folded him in. The leather was cold and stiff. Dean picked up his feet one at a time and plunked them in and closed the door. Sam leaned his head against the cold window. He was shivering.

            Thunks and thumps and the smell of Dean’s leather jacket and an old blanket.

            Sam closed his eyes.

#

            He opened his eyes. The sun was up and he felt like shit. They were on a freeway rolling thorough forests. “Where are we?” he asked.

            “Somewhere between Buffalo and Cleveland,” Dean said. “You need to stop?”

            Sam thought about it. “Yeah,” he said. He needed to pee. Everything hurt again. His shoulder. All the cut places. His back ached from sleeping in the Impala.

            “Hotel stop?” Dean asked.

            “No, just a pit stop,” Sam said. “Do we have pain pills?”

            “Hydrocodone 300’s.” Dean was looking at him.

            “Watch the road,” Sam said and smiled.

            Dean didn’t smile back.

            They stopped at a truck stop. “You’ll need a little food or they’ll make you sick,” Dean said. Dean hated truck stops. He hated interstates. He’d normally drive off the interstate and find a town, someplace where he could find a diner. This time he left the Impala running until he’d dug Sam’s jacket out of his duffle.

            The drug haze had worn off. Sam wasn’t exactly clear on what had happened after Dean left him at the abandoned house but he knew everything up until then. Dean was constitutionally incapable of just apologizing. He’d have to do Dean things. Dean was equally incapable of forgiving himself. Also, soon as Sam was feeling a little better, he wanted to get in touch with Charlie, tell her how everything had turned out and thank her.

            It took a moment to get out of the car. It hurt. Sam wasn’t sure he could stand up but didn’t want Dean to know it so he did and then for a moment his legs threatened to make a liar out of him and he had to hang onto the door and roof of the Impala. Then his legs decided to give a fuck after all. Dean wanted to make him put a jacket on and Sam wanted the jacket because it was cold out but he also didn’t want to fall over. He couldn’t get his bad shoulder to work so Dean helped him which ended up hurting a fuck ton and made Dean go white.

            Scrubs were not warm. Going commando didn’t help. Walking still took concentration and he still felt weak. Dean unobtrusively held his elbow.

            But inside the truck stop was nice and warm. Full of manly men doing manly things like using tablets and laptops to connect to their shipping companies. The waitress was corn fed pretty; tiny, blond, and sarcastic, and taken with Dean from the moment she laid eyes on him. Dean smiled at her and ordered breakfast, complimented her on her comebacks, but he was going through the motions.

            Sam ordered orange juice and a side of white toast. There was a burn mark splashed red on Dean’s wrist and forearm. Sam’s eyes narrowed. “How did you get that,” he asked.

            “What?” Dean asked, falsely naïve. Evading. “How’d you even know about those copter things? I’m getting one when we get back to the bunker. Norris found ‘em and these kids flew ‘em. They’ve got a club, right? They can make ‘em do anything.”

            “How’d you get close enough to get burned?” Sam asked.

            Dean shrugged. “Something had to draw the thing out. You remember, it just blinks from one place to another.”

            “You were bait!” Sam hissed, furious.

            The waitress dropped off Dean’s eggs, bacon, and French toast and Sam’s white toast. “You boys need anything else? Another coffee?”

            “That would be great.” Dean smiled and watched her ass as she walked away. “Take a couple of pain pills,” Dean said quietly.

            “Damn it, Dean! You could have gotten your skull split open!”

            “I didn’t,” Dean said. “Instead I shot you and cut you to pieces. Remember?” He opened the pill bottle and shook out two Hydrocodone. “Take your pills. Pain. Antibiotics, something for kidney function.”

            The pills made a little mosaic on the table. Sam scooped them up and threw them back, chased them with the orange juice. “These are monster injuries, same as any other hunt,” he said.

            “More toast, Sammy. Hydrocodone always makes you feel sick. It’s a long way to Kansas.”

            “I mean it, Dean,” Sam said.

            “I know you do,” Dean said. “You know what it was like when that thing burned? One minute I’m ready to tear everything apart with my bare hands and then the next I remember that I thought my brother was an imposter and I left him bleeding to death the night before.” Dean’s eyes were so green.

            “What were you supposed to do,” Sam said. “You’ve seen me when I wasn’t me.”

“There you are, just cut out of the chair where I left you, surrounded by paramedics. You looked dead. Fucking dead, Sam. There’s blood all over the floor. Blood all over you.”

“I wasn’t dead,” Sam said.

“No you weren’t,” Dean said, “Fuck no. You know what you did? The moment they try to help you, you come up off that floor swinging like a heavyweight boxer. You can’t even sit up and you knock an EMT on his ass and you’re fighting because _you’ve got to wait for Dean_. You tell me, _I fucked up, Dean_.”

Sam says, “People are starting to look at us.” It’s true. Dean hasn’t raised his voice but he’s so intense his tone is starting to catch people’s attention. No wonder people keep thinking they’re gay, it’s like a goddamn lover’s quarrel.

“What the hell, Sammy? I nearly kill you and you think _you_ did something wrong? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dean pushes his plate away. “What the fuck is wrong with us?”

            Sam doesn’t know how to react. “I…I was out of my head. And you were out of yours when you did those things.”

            They sit for a moment.

            “Look,” Sam said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. But I knew you’d come back for me.”

            “And torture you some more,” Dean says. Not intense, just matter of fact. “Because you deserved it or some shit?”

“I never thought that…that the shooting and all of that was because I fucked up,” Sam said, “but I knew this was going to screw with your head. Because you’re on a mission from God to take care of me, okay? I get that. I was thinking about _that_. I was so worried about you coming back and me…not being there or something. Okay? And you’d sell your soul or some bullshit because that always works so well.”

Dean starts to make some motion, some noise.

Sam keeps talking, quietly, “With the EMTs there I was afraid you’d get back there and not find anyone and I thought I’d screwed that up. But you came back. Like you always do. _Like I knew you would_.”

            Dean just studied him for a long time. No way he would stop blaming himself. Just no way. One more thing, Sam thought. There was so much weight Dean was carrying, guy was just gonna crack and Sam wanted to shake him.

            “Okay,” Dean finally said. He pulled his plate of food back towards himself. “Eat your toast, Pocahontas.”

            Best they were going to get was Dean pretending everything was normal. So go with it. Sam took a bite of toast. “Hey.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Since I’m injured and in pain, I should get to chose the music.”

            “Shut your piehole.”

#

            The pain pills did make Sam feel slightly sick. The truck stop had exhausted him. Dean bought Gatorade and made him drink some of it. Dean always bought the blue stuff. Sam kept trying to tell him that real food wasn’t blue. Dean said the blue had better electrolytes which was utter bullshit but Dean’s way of caring was to force pills and Gatorade on Sam and if Sam made it a little hard to do, that made Dean happier.

            Sam rested his head against the window and watched northern Ohio roll by for awhile. He closed his eyes and drifted.

            The front seat of the Impala was pretty wide which meant Dean had to lean pretty far to rest the back of his hand against Sam’s forehead. Sam pretended to be asleep.

            He pretended to be asleep when Dean ruffled his hand through Sam’s hair. Dean hadn’t done that since he was a kid.

            He pretended to be asleep when Dean left his hand on Sam’s knee. After a few moments he opened his eyes enough to glance at Dean through his eyelashes. Dean was watching the road, his face impassive.

            Sam closed his eyes and let the world drift away until all that was left was the weight of Dean’s hand on his knee. And then finally that was gone, too, and he was asleep.

            He woke up somewhere past Cleveland, just for a moment, and the hand was gone, but the weight of it was still there, like a phantom limb.


End file.
